Yoga day was a big success. It inspired witty Whatsapp jokes, “Irish yoga” jokes, memes of cats doing yoga and India even set two world records that day. Sure enough, it gave the mainstream media more than enough material to stretch for weeks. Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu falling asleep during shavasan made “snoozasan” a trend.

The build-up to the big day wasn’t less than “incredible”. Bus stops, bill boards and newspapers were plastered with good looking men and women sitting in padmasan promoting June 21 as International Yoga Day.

Couldn’t see anything else.

We, at Newslaundry, love looking at newspapers. The words are very pretty. And, sometimes, if we strain a little, the letters begin to mean things.

We looked at the Delhi editions of four major English dailies — The Times Of India (TOI), The Indian Express (IE), Hindustan Times (HT) and The Hindu for June 20, 21 and 22 to look at just how crazy the Yoga Day coverage was and whether it eclipsed the death of over 100 people in Mumbai owing to consuming illicitly brewed liquor.

What do you think we found? The Malwani tragedy found space deep inside the newspapers, while Yoga occupied prime space.

JUNE 20

TOI had a four-column story on Yoga on page 18 titled: “Yoga Day a matter of pride but PM using it for self-promotion: Cong”. On Page 16 the publication carried a four-column story on the Mumbai tragedy.

IE gave more weightage to Yoga Day and its celebrations. It printed a cover story on the event and a main story on page 4 . The Mumbai tragedy was covered in a five-column story on page 14.

Page 11 of HT had one half page ad and one half page advertorial dedicated to Yoga Day and carried a story on page 10 as well.

The Malwani tragedy was a small report on the top-left corner of page 15.

The Hindu, too, focused more on yoga than the hooch tragedy. Page 5 of the paper had a story on the top-left corner about Yoga Day. More than half of page 7 carried an advertorial on yoga. The hooch tragedy was reduced to a middle section story on page 12.

While the major English dailies of Delhi pushed the hooch story deep inside the papers, Mumbai dailies, namely, DNA, Mumbai Mirror and Mid-Day, gave a little more importance to the story.

The Mumbai Mirror’s page 2 story covered the hooch incident extensively. Page 12 and Page 14 again contributed to Yoga diaries.

Mid-Day had a total of only two stories on the illegal liquor tragedy and none on Yoga day.

DNA focussed on the hooch deaths and carried a story on the front page, while Yoga day was given only one article on page 10.

June 21

TOI covered Yoga in great lengths with full page coverage on page 2 and a main story along with an anchor story on page 3. The paper also carried Yoga Day advertorials on page 7 and page 9.

The paper dedicated three full pages to International Yoga Day, while it gave a four-column space on page 12 to the developments pertaining to the hooch tragedy.

Yoga was covered extensively on page 1 and was the main story on page 4 of IE. The advertorials promoting Yoga Divas occupied almost 90 per cent of page 6. On the other hand, the hooch tragedy found space as a small column on page 2.

HT had a front page story on Yoga Day . Apart from the advertorial promoting Yoga Divas, the paper also gave full-page coverage to it on page 2 and page 10.

The Hindu carried two front-page stories on Yoga Day while it pushed the hooch story to page 11. The paper also carried an advertorial on yoga on page 20.

Mumbai dailies gave a little more importance to the deaths.

Mumbai Mirror, covered the hooch story on its front page and continued it onto page 5 . Mid-Day, on the other hand, had eight stories on Yoga Day.

DNA covered the deaths on its front page. The front page also had a photo story on yoga. Page 2 and page 4 were full-page coverages on Mumbai tragedy and Yoga Day, respectively.

June 22

The Sunday Times had a front page story and three other full pages on Yoga Day and its success as an international event. It overlooked the hooch incident.

IE had yoga stories floating all over it. The front page, page 6 and page 7 had full-page coverage of international Yoga Day at the Rajpath.

The illicit liquor tragedy was covered only on page 8.

In the HT, Yoga Day celebrations found space on page 8 at the top-left side as a four-column story and as a main story on page 9. Pages 10, 11 and 12 were completely filled with yoga day frenzy. The Mumbai hooch tragedy was covered as an anchor story on page 13.

The Hindu gave three columns worth of space on page 10 to the Malwani tragedy, while it covered Yoga Day on the front page, the second page, the third page, fourth page and page 11.

The page 6 of Mumbai Mirror was filled with photos of Yoga. The paper continued its exhaustive reportage on hooch disaster as full-page cover stories on page 8 and 10. The Yoga day celebrations were pushed to page 11.

Mid-Day had a balance between the numbers of stories reported on both the issues, hooch tragedy, with a total of eight stories, maintained importance over Yoga Day that was covered in one four-column story on page 6.

The DNA covered Yoga Day on its front page along with the hooch deaths. Page 2 was completely dedicated to Yoga Day.

*****

It’s worth questioning why an incident that lead to more than 100 deaths was relegated to the back pages, even as International Yoga Day was covered on the front pages for almost three days straight. It’s apparent that the hooch story wasn’t really over-looked in Delhi editions, but severely over-shadowed. Contrast this to the “Maggi controversy” and reports of adulteration in packaged food that dominated headlines only two weeks ago.

Sure, Yoga Day celebrations brought up questions of nationalism, religion and minority sentiments – stuff that eye-grabbing headlines are made of compared to, say, poor people losing their lives after consuming toxic moonshine. But could we have hoped for a balance in reporting on the two stories, like the Mumbai papers achieved?

Research by Priyanka Mathur